Definitions for kluge

This page provides all possible meanings and translations of the word kluge

WiktionaryRate this definition:(0.00 / 0 votes)

kluge(Noun)

Something that should not work, but does.

kluge(Noun)

A device assembled from components intended for disparate purposes.

Origin: U.S. military slang, probably from the klug.

The New Hacker's DictionaryRate this definition:(0.00 / 0 votes)

kluge

[from the German ‘klug’, clever; poss. related to
Polish & Russian ‘klucz’ (a key, a hint, a main
point)] 1. n. A Rube Goldberg (or Heath
Robinson) device, whether in hardware or software. 2. n. A clever programming trick
intended to solve a particular nasty case in an expedient, if not clear,
manner. Often used to repair bugs. Often involves
ad-hockery and verges on being a
crock. 3. n. Something that works for
the wrong reason. 4. vt. To insert a kluge into a
program. “I've kluged this routine to get around that weird bug, but
there's probably a better way.” 5. [WPI] n. A feature that is
implemented in a rude manner.Nowadays this term is often encountered in the variant spelling
‘kludge’. Reports from old farts are
consistent that ‘kluge’ was the original spelling, reported
around computers as far back as the mid-1950s and, at that time, used
exclusively of hardware kluges. In 1947, the
New York Folklore Quarterly reported a classic
shaggy-dog story ‘Murgatroyd the Kluge Maker’ then current in
the Armed Forces, in which a ‘kluge’ was a complex and puzzling
artifact with a trivial function. Other sources report that
‘kluge’ was common Navy slang in the WWII era for any piece of
electronics that worked well on shore but consistently failed at
sea.However, there is reason to believe this slang use may be a decade
older. Several respondents have connected it to the brand name of a device
called a “Kluge paper feeder”, an adjunct to mechanical
printing presses. Legend has it that the Kluge feeder was designed before
small, cheap electric motors and control electronics; it relied on a
fiendishly complex assortment of cams, belts, and linkages to both power
and synchronize all its operations from one motive driveshaft. It was
accordingly temperamental, subject to frequent breakdowns, and devilishly
difficult to repair — but oh, so clever! People who tell this story
also aver that ‘Kluge’ was the name of a design
engineer.There is in fact a Brandtjen & Kluge Inc., an old family business
that manufactures printing equipment — interestingly, their name is
pronounced /kloo´gee/!
Henry Brandtjen, president of the firm, told me (ESR, 1994) that his
company was co-founded by his father and an engineer named Kluge /kloo´gee/, who built and co-designed
the original Kluge automatic feeder in 1919. Mr. Brandtjen claims,
however, that this was a simple device (with only four
cams); he says he has no idea how the myth of its complexity took hold.
Other correspondents differ with Mr. Brandtjen's history of the device and
his allegation that it was a simple rather than complex one, but agree that
the Kluge automatic feeder was the most likely source of the
folklore.TMRC and the MIT hacker culture of the early
'60s seems to have developed in a milieu that remembered and still used
some WWII military slang (see also foobar). It
seems likely that ‘kluge’ came to MIT via alumni of the many
military electronic